


Golden Fiddle.

by BarPurple



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ambiguity, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, First Meetings, Gen, Hallucinations, Inspired by Music, Junkie Sherlock, JunkieLock, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Sherlock's Violin, drug overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 08:37:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5284058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d never accepted the concept of true evil before, but if he had and if he’d spared a thought about the sound of an evil laugh, well the stranger had it nailed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golden Fiddle.

The scrawny man was chuckling as he clambered in through the open window, any grace in his movements hampered by the bulky rucksack gripped tightly to his chest. Had there been a reason to enter his own flat via the window; for a moment he wondered at the frivolity of his mood and decided that it was the adrenaline at his success. The line of thought was dismissed with a shrug of his thin shoulders and that brought a throb of pain from his bruised back and ribs. He clutched his prize tighter to his grubby sweatshirt and breathed gently until the pain receded a little. Once the throb ebbed to a tolerable level, a smile played across his gaunt face.

Pain was an easy thing to deal with. 

He picked his way across the squalid room like a Lowry matchstick man brought to life. The loose floorboard was pried up by spidery fingers, which were already shaking with the want clawing at his insides. The task would have been easier had he put down his bag, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go, that’s how it had been taken from him last time.

He dropped on to the battered sofa and swept a clear space on the scratched up coffee table. The precious rucksack tucked between his knees as he bent to his task. With the speed of long practice he cooked up his high. Once it was in the barrel of the syringe he placed it reverently on the table and rubbed his hands together to calm himself. Anticipation was part of the pleasure. He finally opened the rucksack and carefully removed his hard fought for prize. 

The violin was no worse for wear for its difficult twenty-four hours. A few experimental pucks revealed the need for some minor adjustments to bring the sound back into true. The bow was in need of rosin, but it would serve for now. He laid the instrument across his lap and reached for the syringe. The needle pierced the thin skin at the crook of his elbow and the rush of depressing the plunger caused a drawn out sigh to escape from his cracked lips. He let his head roll on his neck and fall against the ragged back of the sofa as the drug took away the pain from his bruises and every other care buzzing in his brain.

It was the sound of a wooden chair scraping across the floor that caused him to blink open his eyes and sit up right. There was a thin figure perched on the hickory chair like a thin vulture, all sharp angles and hunched posture.

“Got your fiddle back, I see Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s hands instinctively clamped shut around the neck and bow. He sighed in relief that the stranger hadn’t taken the only possession that meant anything to him.  
The stranger tilted his head and Sherlock was transfixed by the way the shadows played across his angular face.

“Don’t know if you know it, but I’m a fiddle player to.”

Sherlock considered this lyrical statement for a long quiet moment. His harsh bark of laughter echoed in the flat.

“I think I know this one,” He let his accent shift into a Texan drawl, “If I care to take a dare, you’ll make a bet with me?”

The stranger bowed his head. There was something unsettling about the gleam in his eyes and the toothy grin. Bravado he didn’t quite feel made Sherlock say;

“Unless your instrument in invisible I’d say the outcome is a foregone conclusion in my favour. I’m the only one packing as they say.”

The stranger cackled; the sound sent shivers through Sherlock’s whole body. He’d never accepted the concept of true evil before, but if he had and if he’d spared a thought about the sound of an evil laugh, well the stranger had it nailed.

“I’ve already made my play boy. It’s a curious quirk of thinking, but every junkie believes that under a floor board is an infallible hiding place.”

Sherlock’s eyes didn’t betray his hiding place. There was no point the contents it normally held were laid out on the table before him. In a moment of clarity he realised that the glass vial wasn’t the one he’d stashed away. He swallowed hard as his throat dried and constricted with panic.

“The trick is to match the levels. A junkie will notice if there is more or less than there should be, but they won’t notice that the vial is different. Odd, but there you are.”

Sherlock’s hands were now shaking uncontrollable; he couldn’t keep his grip on his violin and it slid from his fingers. The stranger watched it fall to the floor, indifference painted on his sharp features. The same indifference focused on Sherlock as the overdose wrought havoc on his system.

“There’s a chance you’ll live. You were sawing it hot on that fiddle for hours. Even in this neighbourhood it’s possible someone called the police to complain. Maybe your landlord dropped a dime himself. After all he did evict you yesterday.”

The stranger unfolded from the chair. To Sherlock’s drug addled perception he elongated and stretched impossibly large, able to loom over Sherlock’s prone body without moving his feet from the floor.

“I hear them coming. They’re at the door right now. Question is will you hold onto that life your busy pissing away long enough to be saved?”

The effort drain more colour from his already greying face, but Sherlock managed to gasp out;

“I want to live.” 

“Aha, the last words of every damned dying soul. Hum, maybe this time I believe. Well I know when I’ve been beat. Just remember I might want to try again someday. Catch you later.”

 

“In here! Get an ambulance; NOW!”

Newly promoted Detective Sergeant gave the drug paraphernalia on the table a fast glace. The gold label on the empty bottle instantly caught his eye.

“It’s Golden Fiddle.”

That at least confirmed the reason for him being sent on a noise complaint. The newest ‘brand’ to hit the streets had a nasty fatality rate, and from the look of the emaciated kid he was hanging on by the skin of his teeth, but fighting hard. The junkie surprised everyone by yelling;

“Where’d he go? The man with the coat and cheekbones? Where is he?”

The officers gave the flat a quick search, but found no one else present. The man with the coat and cheekbones was attributed to hallucinations. There was a cracked mirror leaning against the wall opposite the sofa and the kid himself had a sharp pair of cheekbones. The paramedics arrived and the still breathing and babbling kid was taken away. 

Greg Lestrade didn’t give him another thought until five days later when the fancy suit fell into step with him on his way home.

“Detective Sergeant Lestrade? May I have a moment of your time? I owe you my thanks and my brother owes you his life.”

The suit, bespoke suit in fact, gestured to a sleek black car idling at the curb in blatant violation of the red line. Greg leant around the suit and caught sight of the discreetly displayed government permit.

With a sigh Greg climbed into the car wondering what shit storm he’d stirred up for himself this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, The Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band inspired this fic. Not in the least bit sorry.


End file.
